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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Are you doing a Reading Challenge this year?

A to Z is a couple of months away, and your hosts are already working behind the scenes. But blogging is not the only challenge you can face this year! Since so many of our participants each year write book blogs, or plan on having reading-related themes (*raises hand*), I wanted to write about reading challenges today.

Are you doing any?
Are you planning to?
Why / why not?

I have stumbled upon this question recently through the Hungarian version of Goodreads. On that site, people can create challenges of their own, and invite others to participate. The result is literally thousands of challenges, of all shapes, sizes, and difficulty levels. Some invite you to read one specific books; some require dozens; some ask you to read something with a season in the title, etc. For completing a challenge, you earn a badge on your profile.

I am a sucker for badges.

I learned one very important thing as I got sucked into the rabbithole of reading challenges:

Pick the challenge for the book, not the other way around.
No one should read piles of books they are not interested in, just for bragging rights.
(... all right, so there are probably many people who do that.)

Challenges are supposed to push you, and coax you outside your comfort zone. My advice, though: Be careful - you don't want reading to become a task. Those of you who are in graduate school probably do way too much of that anyway (my reading challenge is called Dissertation Lit Review...).

I found reading challenges in 2009 and jumping in with both feet. I started my blog to keep track of my challenges and in 2010 disappeared because reading had become a chore. I'm back to reading, blogging and reviewing and no longer stress about finishing the challenges, or taking the summer off. The good news is that my reading has expanded due to the reading challenges

I'm doing two. The first is on GR, though I cut down my goal from what I didn't reach last year. I'm aiming for 26 books this year (one every two weeks). I also found one from Modern Mrs. Darcy that looked pretty attainable and open-ended (suggested books include, "A book you previously abandoned," and, "A book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller"). It's here, if anyone else is interested: http://modernmrsdarcy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/MMD-2016-Reading-Challenge.jpg

I'm actually not doing a reading challenge this year. The past two years I did the Goodreads challenges for 50 then 75 books. The first year I surpassed 50 and almost reached 100. Last year I missed the mark by a few books. I didn't read as much last year because it felt like a chore...reading to post reviews. So this year I plan to read for pleasure. I miss that!

Oh, those all look very cool! Good luck! :)In case you need international literature in the mix, I made a post on Hungarian novels available in English :)http://hungarykum.blogspot.com/2016/01/mopdog-monday-hungarian-literature-for.html

I did the PopSugar reading challenge last year. I didn't finish, but I'm still plugging away, and doing the one this year. It resulted in reading books I otherwise might not of- three of which became favorites! I am so grateful for that one.I'm also in the Goodreads and 50BookPledge challenges, which is just about numbers. (PopSugar has ones like, "A book with a color in the title" for example.)

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